Despite the close relationship on the surface, there is lots of distrust and spying on the part of the US and Israel

Despite the close diplomatic ties between the US and Israel on the surface, the intelligence agencies of both countries are anything but friendly, according to former US officials.

“The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s Near East Division” officials told the Associated Press. “Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that US national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.”

Israeli intelligence agencies have been implicated in intrusions and tampering with sensitive equipment of CIA officers in Israel, criminal espionage cases inside the US, and disciplinary proceedings against CIA officers.

Israeli agencies were also blamed in the presumed death of an important CIA spy in Syria during the George W. Bush administration.

These kinds of nuances in the US-Israeli relationship are rarely talked about in the open. And the relationship is severely oversimplified in the presidential campaign, which can often appear as a contest for who supports Israel the most.

One well-known case has colored the alliance skeptical since it happened in 1987. That year, Jonathan Pollard, who worked for the Navy as a civilian intelligence analyst, was convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced to life in prison. In January 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Obama to free Pollard, as Israel has been doing for years, and admitted that Israel’s behavior in the case were “wrong and wholly unacceptable.”

After 9/11, the Bush administration had the CIA rank some of the world’s intelligence agencies in order of their cooperation and friendliness in the war on terror. Israel was low on the ranking, considering its deep ties to Washington, and even fell below the intelligence agencies of Libya.

I'm just crying a river about Mossad and the CIA not liking each other. Both of them are a menace to humanity. They can just go blow each other up, a la "Spy vs. Spy" in "MAD" magazine.

Macroman

"…admitted that Israel's behavior in the case WAS 'wrong…'"

LT COL HOWARD

The article talks about all the spying that the US does on Israel. My “location” had motion sensors in each room as well as pinhole infrared cameras that would do both time sequence and motion generated photography. In addition the exterior was well guarded with video(covert ) surveillance. This article does not pass an elementary smell test. Why now? Is it to take away public attention from the truly damaging leaks from the White House (per Sen. Feinstein) if I can guess correctly the CIA personreporting the refrigerator incident has never been sober for even a minute. I doubt if he could remember the arrangements of his refrigerator since he had never remembered the contents of his appointment schedule. I have been part of numerous lists of who spies on the United States.— France, China, Japan, Great Britain,Russia,Saudi Arabia, and even Canada —for starters.

jsinton

The CIA has felt that way about Israel for at least 40 years that I personally know about.

LT COL HOWARD

They also feel that way about DIA, the national Security Council, various elements of the State Department, and especially British intelligence. Oddly, within CIA field operatives feel this way about the Washington-based bureaucrats. And the analysts feel that way about the field operatives and vice a versa. Talk to anyone in CIA and you can get hostile quotes about treasury, the Secret Service, the FBI, etc. etc. Thus in this story, which quotes the CIA… sources are vague and secondhand. They appear to be non-unchallengeable since they are as told to, as told through, as told to.

Duglarri

Netanyahu's administration was very quick to deny this report. "We can deny categorically that the CIA has had discussions in which they called Israel an intelligence threat. We have listening devices in all of their offices and we read all their mail. And our operatives at the highest level in the CIA would also quash any talk like that. So we know absolutely for certain that no such discussions have taken place."